Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1887-08-29

strength grows upon you. He has. SO one of
the leading brokers of the street tells me, no
bad habits does not drink nor smoke to ex-
cess, and is not a fool in any way.
"Ives is as commonplace a fellow as you will
find anywhere. If he is down town he will
drop in at a lunch counter and eat thirty
cent lunch with clerks and brokers, making
no more ado about it than he did when he
was q clerk himself. He will dine at Del
monico's the same evening, perhaps, with
millionaires, and the cost of the dinner may
run into the hundreds. He is as much at
home there as he was at the lunch counter
and he never loses his head.
"Ives has," this man went on, "the most
wonderful self confidence of any man have
ever known. He is the most plausible Of men,
and, notwithstanding his boyishness, he has q
wonderful power of influencing men. l look
upon him as belonging to that class Of men
to which Bismarck belongs, and Napoleon
Bonaparte belonged, and he has many quail
ties in common with them. don't think he
has great moral sense. His religion, like
that of Bonaparte, is success, and he regards
obstacles only as to be overcome. Amy means
which will overcome these are right, and
the least as to what he has done. Had he sue
ceeded in floating his last $500 900 of stock
he would have completed his road to the Pa
cifc and would have been the great financier
of the day. As it Is it is impossible to say
whether he will escape the courts. His meth
DDS have not been much unlike many of those
practiced on the street, save that he has taken
in the brokers while they have heretofore
gobbled only outsiders"
"Tell me something about the Mutual Union
deal which first brought him to the front"
"That occurred a couple of years ago.
think Ives had not yet established his reputa-
ton as stock dealer, but he was skirmishing
around specializing wherever he could. The
most OF the Mutual Union telegraph stock
had been called in and there was only 700
shares out. The Western Union wanted to
get the whole stock and wipe the company
out or merge it into their company. Ives got
an express Office clerk in Newark N j., to
write to a number of New York brokers ask.
ing them on what terms they would sell short
ali inactive stock for him. He received re-
plies from them that they would do it for
five per cent margin. He then telegraphed
each Of them to sell several hundred shares
of Mutual Union short for him, and with the
telegram came the words, twill send to-
morrow" These words were supposed by the
brokers to mean will send cash tomorrow
and they sold the stock, amounting alto
getber to several Thousand shares. 1t was
very unbusinesslike, but they did it. Ives
had his broker buy this stock, and when the
brokers of the express agent tried to get it for
delivery they found none to buy. The stock
went up like shot. They had to have it or
they would lose their regulations, and the
result was that Ives, with no money invested
to speak of, made nice thing out Of it. 1t
was for this transaction that Doremus, as
being the partner of Ives, was afterward put
out of the exchange.
s~H
"What do you think Of his futurel"
"He will have future beyond doubt.
His head is too active and his schemes too
broad to allow him to lack hackers Whether
he will save anything out of this crash is a
question. But he is bound to come to the
front again, and he may yet be the Jay
Gould of the future. He is too sanguine, and
he lacks good balance wheel In the hands
of capitalists who will act as a restraining
power within he will yet make millions by
sharp speculation and he has years vet to do
it in. Jay Gould was 30. think, when the
L...A f.iday speculation sent him to the
front. Who can tell where Ives will be when
he is four years olderw
I am inclined to think my broker friend
is correct. Ives is entirely too active a guam
tity to remain quiet. His methods and his
transactions which have been lately fully
ventilated in the newspapers have been as
peculiar rs those Of Bret Harte's heather
Chinee But Wall street does not deal in
gilt edged honesty. and the technicalities of
the law rather than the spirit Of the sermon
on the mount form its code of morals He
has had the best of legal talent, and it is
doubtful whether anything can be done to
him. FRANK G. CARPENTER